Okkervil River
Black Sheep Boy

Release Date: 2005 | Tracklist

Music should be an emotional experience. A rather blunt, and perhaps obvious statement, but it’s true. No matter what ‘genre’ a particular type of music falls into; if it’s good, you should feel it. I mean, even something fun and harmless like the Shins has that certain vibe to it. It takes you back to that place in your head, the one where you’re with your friends and it’s a sunny day in the middle of summer. Still, the very best music, is the kind that connects with you so much that an entire album becomes a rolling examination of human emotion. This is what Okkervil River’s “Black Sheep Boy” does for me. Through the course of the album, I move from sad to happy, angry to elated, joy to sheer heartbreak. This is why “Black Sheep Boy” has become one of my favourite albums of all time. It has that emotional impact.

I would like to take a moment to state that I usually shy away from saying something like, “this is one of my favourite albums” in a review. It takes away from the objectivity of the review, and is rather unprofessional. However, if I back this claim up well enough, as I plan to do, I should be able to remain safe. Now that I have that fully disclosed, I can continue talking about the album, and it all comes down to the sequencing. That is a given, after all it is a thematically conceptual album, based on a character from I 1960's folk song by Tim Hardin. In fact, this is where the album starts, with a re-working of the title track on the album. A lonely guitar is filled out with piano and strings. This is generally the framework for the rest of the album. Most of the songs feature a minimalistic acoustic guitar figure that is augmented by keys, drums and bass, with the occasional horns, strings and electronics thrown in for good taste. This in part, is what makes the album difficult to get into at first. It just doesn’t seem like much, kind of in an “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” way, but the more one listens to the album, the more it shows it’s true colours.

The clever lyricism, which is some of the best I’ve heard on an album, is a major draw into the album’s world. Revolving around the titular Black Sheep Boy, and his relationship with a girl who was abused as a child, Will Sheff molds a unique and heartbreaking prose. Second track, “For Real” cleverly uses it’s title, “Tonight’s the night for real blood / for real knives / for real cries” as it builds towards it’s heavy ending with distorted guitars and rock percussion. Alternately, “A Stone” uses the metaphor of a stone to discuss how our hero (the Black Sheep Boy) deals with loving a girl who was abused in her childhood and has forgotten how to love a man. The lyricism is definitely the best attribute of the album, but the musicianship and instrumentation don’t let the listener down in any way. The keyboards take a turn at the front in “Black”, and a mandolin makes an appearance alongside a trumpet in the soft and mellow “A King and a Queen”. Okkervil River also make an interesting use of electronics, tapes and looping, as best displayed on the incredibly catchy “The Latest Toughs” with a looped tape of children singing “you were blinded by the sun” playing underneath the upbeat guitar and bass lines, backed by a swinging drum beat. The music in it’s self makes for a great album, but that isn’t what makes the album the classic I claim it to be. That, as I mentioned earlier, comes down to the sequencing and progression of the album.

The album glides through a series of upbeat rockers like “Black”, low key indie-folk-pop songs like “Song of Our So-Called Friends” and downright beautifully depressing numbers like “Get Big” and “In A Radio Song” until it reaches it’s climax. “So Come Back, I am Waiting” is what the rest of “Black Sheep Boy” is building towards. The 8 minute epic starts off with sparse acoustic guitar work, until drums and bass slowly come into the fold. Strings, electric guitar and horns then make an appearance half-way through for the song’s first, mini-climax. Falling back to a short little horn bridge, the music builds once again. This time, it’s all or nothing as the drums pummel, the guitars thrash, the horns blare, and the strings sigh. Over top, Will Sheff screams out the lyrical climax of the album, “I am waiting on hoof and on hand / I am waiting all hated and damned / I am waiting I snort and I stamp / I am waiting you know that I am / calmly waiting to make you my lamb”. Up until this point, it was a great album, this is the point that makes it a classic for me. This is the part that breaks your heart, where you forget you’re just listening to an album about a fictional character. This is where you feel the music.

That feeling that “So Come Back, I am Waiting” is alternately beautiful and sad. When music can bring out that much of an emotional reaction, it’s something special. The music itself is strong, and well down. The lyrics, as I said before, are dark clever, and simply some of the best I’ve ever come across in any album that I have ever heard. But still, it’s that moment that you just can’t shake. After a really hard day, or a particularly bad time in my life, this is the album I put on an immerse myself into. It has the sort of power to just make me let everything go. It makes you smile, it makes you cry, it makes you laugh and it makes you sigh. This is the type of music that makes you feel human.

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4.1 excellent

Rank: #62 for 2005